Anthologies

A true essay is "something hazarded, not definitive, not authoritative; something ventured on the basis of the author's personal experience and subjectivity," writes guest editor Jonathan Franzen in his introduction. However, his main criterion for selecting The Best American Essays 2016 was, in a word, risk. Whether the risks involved championing an unpopular opinion, the possibility of ruining a professional career, or irrevocably offending family, for Franzen, "the writer has to be like the firefighter, whose job, while everyone else is fleeing the flames, is to run straight into them."

The Best American Essays 2016 includes ALEXANDER CHEE, PAUL CRENSHAW, JAQUIRA DÍAZ, LAURA KIPNIS, AMITAVA KUMAR, SEBASTIAN JUNGER,
JOYCE CAROL OATES, OLIVER SACKS, THOMAS CHATTERTON WILLIAMS and others

JONATHAN FRANZEN, guest editor, is the author of five novels, most recently Purity, and five works of nonfiction and translation, including Farther Away and The Kraus Project. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Künste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

ROBERT ATWAN, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from American advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.

"The literary 'Oscars' features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories." --Shelf Awareness for Readers

The Best American Short Stories 2016 will be selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz. He brings "one of the most distinctive and magnetic voices in contemporary fiction: limber, streetwise, caffeinated and wonderfully eclectic" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) to the collection.

Like your favorite local grocery store, with its sushi bar, fresh baked goods, and maybe a very obliging butcher, Best Food Writing offers a bounty of everything in one place. For seventeen years, Holly Hughes has delved into piles of magazines and newspapers, scanned endless websites and blogs, and foraged through bookstores to provide a robust mix of what's up in the world of food writing. From the year's hottest trends (this year: meal kits and extreme dining) to the realities of everyday meals and home cooks (with kids, without; special occasions and every day) to highlighting those chefs whose magic is best spun in their own kitchens, these essays once again skillfully, deliciously evoke what's on our minds-and our plates. Pull up a chair.

Contributors include:

Betsy Andrews
Jessica Battilana
John Birdsall
Matt Buchanan
Jennifer Cockrall-King
Tove Danovich
Laura Donohue
Daniel Duane
Victoria Pesce Elliott
Edward Frame
Phyllis Grant
Andrew Sean Greer
Kathy Gunst
L. Kasimu Harris
Steve Hoffman
Dianne Jacob
Rowan Jacobsen
Pableaux Johnson
Howie Kahn
Mikki Kendall
Brian Kevin
Kat Kinsman
Todd Kliman
Julia Kramer
Corby Kummer
Francis Lam
Rachel Levin
Brett Martin
Tim Neville
Chris Newens
James Nolan
Keith Pandolfi
Carol Penn-Romine
Michael Procopio
Kathleen Purvis
Alice Randall
Besha Rodell
Helen Rosner
Michael Ruhlman
Oliver Sacks
Andrea Strong
Jason Tesauro
Toni Tipton-Martin
Wells Tower
Luke Tsai
Max Ufberg
Debbie Weingarten
Pete Wells

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist, producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected--and illuminated--the fraught times in which he lived. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge--in short, to think--as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."

Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.